A Kentucky man with a meat allergy was craving a burger. So he got into ostrich farming

DANVILLE, Ky. (AP) — When a friend approached Brent Williams four years ago with a business proposition to start an ostrich farm, he was more than intrigued — he had a personal motivation as someone who developed a life-threatening allergy to red meat, triggered by tick bites.

The problem, known as alpha-gal syndrome, was first linked to a particular species of ticks about 15 years ago. But cases are on the rise as more people report symptoms such as hives, diarrhea and itchiness after eating as little as a mouthful of red meat. The allergy doesn’t extend to seafood or poultry. Chicken, turkey and eggs are all OK to eat.

And so is ostrich meat.

The flightless bird’s meat, red in color and high in iron, has a look and taste similar to beef.

“The people that have alpha-gal that I talked to that have tried an ostrich burger, most of them are almost in tears,” said Williams, a nutritionist and partner at Alpha Roost Farms in Danville, Kentucky. They say, “You just don’t know how bad I missed this.”

The farm is looking to nearly double its herd by next year. It recently built a new barn for hatchlings of the birds, which are native to Africa and are the world’s largest, standing at nine feet tall (2.7 meters) and weighing more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms). The farm has more than 400 birds, and expects that number to grow to 700 by next year.

Alpha Roost Farms owner W.D. King, who approached Williams with the idea of raising ostriches, said the interest from those with alpha-gal is helping drive the demand.

“People who haven’t had a hamburger in six or seven years really want one,” King said.

And they are willing to pay: A pound of ground ostrich can cost more than $20, and choice cuts can sell for more than $40.

“We have people that drive here from all over the state to get the ostrich,” said Leah Gibbs, who runs Dry Branch Farm market in Danville, Kentucky, that sells ostrich cuts from Alpha Roost Farms.

“They are elated to have something that’s an alternative to beef,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it tastes exactly like beef.”

The Alpha-Gal Association, a nonprofit advocacy group that provides online resources to people with the allergy, recommends ostrich as a dietary substitute that tastes like beef.

Boyd Clark, who runs a large ostrich farm in Texas, said he expects to increase his herd of about 1,200 birds by 50% next year. Clark has raised the big birds since the 1980s, and said the few full-scale ostrich farms around the country are trying to meet a growing demand.

“We get calls weekly from various restaurants or even small stores in different parts of the country that you wouldn't think would even want to carry ostrich, but they're looking for it because they've got customers wanting it,” said Clark, who runs Clark Ostrich Farm, about 90 miles (144 kilometers) northwest of Austin.

The latest interest comes after ostrich farming saw a surge and crash in the 1990s, when many farms and investors were eager to get into the ostrich market but lacked experience dealing with the wild birds.

“The U.S. producers that jumped both feet in in the '90s, they were all operating under the premise that these were 300-pound chickens,” said Michael Lehman, vice president of the American Ostrich Association and an ostrich farmer in Oregon.

The farms tried to apply the high-density approach that works well with chickens, but ostriches need free range space, Lehman said. The farms weren't able to get the yields they expected, so supply wasn't able to meet demand, he said, and the industry crashed under skyrocketing prices.

Lehman estimated there are only about 10 to 15 farms operating today that have large ostrich herds, and those producers have a better understanding of the animals' behavior and free range needs.

Williams was diagnosed with alpha-gal seven years ago. His first allergic reaction came in 2017 after eating a steak sandwich while traveling for work, something he had done hundreds of times before.

He went to see an allergist for help in diagnosing the puzzling and painful flare-up.

“The very first visit, he asked me, 'Have you been bitten by a tick?' I just laughed and said, ‘Sure, hundreds,’” said Williams, who has spent most of his life raising livestock on farms where ticks thrive.

The tick that bit him was carrying the alpha-gal sugar, which is found in the meat of most mammals, but not in humans. The sugar is harmless when eaten directly, but not when exposed via ticks' saliva. When it entered Williams' bloodstream, it caused an immune system reaction. The antibodies created from the reaction learned to identify and attack alpha-gal sugar molecules, making meat from mammals toxic to his system.

Alpha-gal syndrome is relatively new to medical study after a research paper linked it to tick bites in 2011. In 2023, a government report said there were about 100,000 people in the U.S. with the allergy, though experts said many people don't know they have it and the number of sufferers could be closer to a half-million. Last year, researchers said they documented the first known case of a death related to alpha-gal , after a 47-year-old New Jersey man died in 2024.

Once Williams got his diagnosis, all meat from mammals, even the fumes of it from a grill or gelatin on a pill, were off limits.

“It's been eight years, but I still vividly remember how sick I was,” Williams said.

So when he tried ostrich meat for the first time, he said it was the closest thing he had to beef in years. His wife bought some online and he cooked an ostrich steak.

“The mouth feel, the taste, the texture, it brought me good memories ... because there’s only so many ways you can cook a chicken,” Williams said.